sacrificial rights
by verbtastic
Summary: tell me about your wings.


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_"Are you okay?"_

"I'm fine."

"...No, silly, you're not."

.

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**sacrificial rights**

**by: verbtastic**

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_Mirrors on the ceiling,  
Pink champagne on ice.  
___

When Sasuke was little he saw skeletons with puffy lips smeared with red and champagne glasses in their slender hands. They would teeter in the weapons they wore instead of shoes and touch his mother's arm or lean over to whisper the secrets that only dead people were supposed to know into his father's ear. He would watch them through the long eyelashes that they always commented on while they attempted to sharpen their long gemstone claws along his jaw bone, knowning that Father would come and rescue him from the skeletons, the vampires and the harpies. They would slink over to Itachi whose eyes were smokey and smile was horrible who would entertain them with the impersonal stories he threw them. A feral smirk would tear through his brother's cold expression as he watched the skeleton-girls fight over him like starving dogs pit against each other for meat. Sasuke would fall asleep between a vampire and a mermaid until his mother came, taking him to his bed where only angels could see him.

By the time he was twelve they didn't speak to him anymore, but that was okay. His parents weren't there to save him anyways.

_And she said, "We are all just  
Prisoners here, of our own device."  
---_

He is fifteen they come into his life, and he doesn't want them there. The Botticelli angel with eyes like violets bleached by the bright sun of her hair walks into his house with a haugnty tilt of her chin and the sway of her hips. Kohl is smudged under her vibrant eyes and he gets the impression that she never sleeps, that if the entire world was the moon, she would be the sun. A princess with ghost eyes and long purple hair shuffles behind her in layers of white chiffon and an uncomfortable expression. She was invisible behind the bold Botticelli angel, all softness and curves. But it's the third girl who changes everything. Her green eyes are a shock, a jolt that reminds him of the coy mermaids whose lipstick smeared over his brother's cheeks as well as the glasses his mother gave them. They were feline, half closed with the weight of her long eyelashes and mysterious. The girl's hair was as pink as Vegas lights, tumbling over her shoulders like scotch over ice. She wasn't anything compared to the full bodied Botticelli, a golden goddess. Her forehead was a little too large, and her cheekbones weren't as sharp as the skeletons of his childhood, but she was captivating in her own right.

Sasuke watches his brother push through the acolytes that he gathered around after their parents died. His hair is longer now, his eyes are always tired but his lips tell a different story. Sasuke doesn't trust them anymore, the lips that had read him fairytales in such silky tones. They lie with too much skill. His own hair falls in long spikes in front of his face, but he watches as Itachi snakes an arm around the blond goddess's waist and talks into her ear. His breath makes the delicate chandelier that hangs from her ear sway back and forth and fine gold tresses fall down the nape of her neck unnoticed, but his eyes wander back to the not-quiet-right girl. As Sasuke lifts the glass of wine to his lips, it seems heavier than before.

The cold air that greets him is refreshing after the overheated rooms in a way that even the wine isn't. He leans against the still warm brick pillar and watches the stars talk to each other, their shimmer and winking their language. The clouds move, the deep timbre of their 'voice' and their slow speech ground the soprano moon and alto stars. And she's there, the not-quiet-right girl, her pink hair knotted from dancing too fast and her eyeliner smudged across her pale cheeks.

_"Are you okay?"_

"Hn."

_"No, I didn't think so. He leaves you alone too much, leaves you with too much pain."_

Concern weaves itself into her face, crinkling her brow and dragging her small lips down. And before Sasuke can protest or defend his personal space her small, pixie hands are cradling his face. The way that she twists onto her toes reminds him of a sunflower reaching up to the sun. The mermaid eyes stare into him, through him, then close slowly. The peppermint green of her eyes is lost when she takes a deep breath. Her full lips part just enough for a small cloud of air to come through, and he thinks that she breathes out celestial dust instead of air, because no air moves or glimmers the way that her breath does. She looks like a fairy when she opens her eyes and a siren when she walks away, but he can see the outline of wings under her cotton candy hair.

_And in their master's chambers  
They gathered for the feast_

"Tell me about your wings."

It's been two months since Sasuke saw her, and his heart doesn't ache as much.

Her hair is shorter now, cut to her chin in uneven layers. The strands braided with beads and the Egyptian style makeup make her look like a gypsy or perhaps an exotic Goddess. The Botticelli beauty is here and so is the impossibly fragile princess, making a fortress out of a red couch that protected them from the many drunk suitors, but she is alone. She's the real angel, he thinks, the one who takes in air and breathes out star dust and miracles. She doesn't look suprised to see him, only amused at his question. The quirk of her lips makes him think of the girl in the school picture pamphlet with a perfect photo, the one no one ever gets. Only this girl has pink hair and strange eyes and wings on her back instead of the monotone brown coloring and maroon sweater.

_"Aren't you supposed to ask my name first?"_

Her voice makes him flinch slightly. It's not the breathless voice that has poured forth from the throats of the angels he has known. It's smooth and high, and if she started singing she'd be a first class soprano. She belonged on a stage under bright lights, confined to some costume and buried under makeup. Composers would write operas just for her perfect voice and audiences would shiver with delight at the delicious sound. Her slender hand comes to rest on a jutting hip bone under studs and denim and a playful but expectant look arranges itself on her unique features. The chin that stops too abruptly tilts up and his breath gets caught in his throat at the sight of her swan neck.

_"Well, are you going to ask?"_

He blinks, but his words have still left him. They've been gone since his parents died.

_"My name is Sakura."_

The boy doesn't move.

_"And you are Sasuke Who Doesn't Talk."_

His dark hair flutters slightly as he exhales, his breath quickly lost within the humid room.

"I talked before, didn't I? I asked you about your wings."

The girl - Sakura, he reminds himself - smiles. Her teeth are like the foot lights on stages, evenly spread and extremely bright. Black eyeliner is smudged beneath her green eyes and from here he can see a smattering of freckles over her cheek bones.

_"Persistent, aren't you?"_

The smile never moves as she reaches up and unties one of the bluegreengold straps of her shirt and lets it fall. Her tiny fingers make quick work of the other knot, like seasoned sailors and she turns around with decisive movements. Sasuke can feel his lungs working, but registers that no air is coming in through his tightly clenched teeth. They're there - her wings. They spread across her back and disappear under her bra and down her waist, and they're actually there. Sasuke can see them clearly now, like the algebra problems that he's always been so good at, like the basketball net that he never had a problem shooting to, like everything he's ever seen and nothing at all. Sasuke can See the not-quiet-right girl's wings.

_"I got chicken poxs when I was four. They iched and iched and I scratched and scratched. They taped lobster oven mits to my hands, but I got them off. And when all my scars healed, they made wings."_

Sasuke shakes his head sadly, dark (_broken_) eyes never leaving her wings.

"No."

His long pianist fingers reach out and stroke from her small shoulder blades to her waist.

"You've always had wings."

She shivers.

_They stab it with their steely knives,  
But they just can't kill the beast.  
---_

Sasuke is getting married today, and he doesn't love her.

(_and he does love you?_)

She has red hair like stop signs and stop lights with eyes like bullet piercing armor and teeth like strobe lights. She has glasses and long legs with beautiful white legs, legs like paper. Sakura wanted to fold them into paper cranes and boats so they could fly and sale away from Sasuke. She could sail to the end of the earth and fly off with her little wet wings and fall into heaven, if she liked. She could go anywhere, as long as she didn't take Sasuke with her.

The sun is giving Sakura a headache as she walks and her shoes are slapping out a melody too cheerful, a dirge to end them all. She was walking to the _wedding to end them all _if the newspaper reports were anything to go by. Sakura had bought every paper she could find and ripped them to confetti with her chipped nails. She had shoved the pieces into her mouth and eaten them and cried out the words through mascara on her cheeks. Ino had called, had invited her to go _somewhere_ and do _something _with_ someone,_ but she had declined. Little Hinata with her grace and tact and eerie eyes had left a message on her cellphone and muffins at her door. A plethora of people had pounded on her door and begged, asked, demanded to be let inside, but Sakura remained curled up on her bed staring at the ceiling. It felt like her world was ending.

Like her wings were falling off.

The doors weigh two tons as she opens them, but the sight of her Sasuke standing at the alter makes her shoulders ache.

.

She's standing at the end of the isle in a white dress, and he can't help but smirk at the irony.

His black eyes meet her too green ones and she turns, those dainty fairy hands grabbing the handles and throwing open the doors

- and her wings are gone.

_fin._

A/N; don't ask what brought this about - it just happened. too much flb, who is the greatest author in the world. inspired by echo and the hangedman the most. the ending was a little hazy to me - maybe sasuke grew up and stopped believing in angels and sparkly happy things like that and by proxy, sakura? or maybe she healed him and he moved on with his life. both are plausable. and the flipping format wont go right, so deal with it.


End file.
